Java Class Accessibility [duplicate]

Question

Slightly related to my other question: What is the difference between the following:

private class Joe
protected class Joe
public class Joe
class Joe

Once again, the difference between the last 2 is what I'm most interested in.

Answer 1

A public class is accessible to a class in any package.

A class with default access (class Joe) is only visible to other classes in the same package.

The private and protected modifiers can only be applied to inner classes.

A private class is only visible to its enclosing class, and other inner classes in the same enclosing class.

A protected class is visible to other classes in the same package, and to classes that extend the enclosing class.

Answer 2

• private: visible for outer classes only
• protected: visible for outer classes only
• public: visible for all other classes
• class: package-private, so visible for classes within the same package

See JLS for more info.